Geniuses on Drugs

It is widely publicized that throughout history, a number of our most brilliant minds have taken to experimenting with mind altering substances for a time. This certainly does not go in line with our North American war on drugs mentality, which informs us that only low lives use drugs. The truth of the matter is, experimentation with drugs is frequently a staple of an expansive, genius mind. Imagination and experimentation are essential to brilliance, and imagination and experimentation are often found in people who use drugs, at least for a time. Experimentation with drugs is a sign of curiosity, not of reprobate.

The reason that drug use and brilliance often go together is that the intelligent mind recognizes its own limitations and pushes to exceed them. A consistent measure of intelligence is the breadth of scope one possesses, and scope is often discovered by working at seeing outside of your own perspective. There are a number of cognitive-behavioral ways of going about this, such as reading material to inform yourself of things you are not aware of, engaging in conversation and social interaction with people who are not like you, and so on. Then there are more alternative ways of broadening your perspective.

One of the trademarks of mind altering drugs is that they take you to a head space that you could not achieve on your own. Many people’s experiences of using drugs involves accessing parts of the brain that are usually closed off, as well as thinking and feeling in a way that is atypical to your normal thought patterns. Brilliant minds seek these rare experiences as a means of breaking down the walls of their own limited perceptions. They seldom become addicts or substance abusers because they are self aware enough to recognize how their mind falters if they overuse the substance. Thus is the relationship that geniuses have with mind altering drugs.